My son is 35 now, but when my son was about eight, or maybe nine, he was on the playground of his elementary school, and underneath the playground equipment was little tiny pea gravel, I guess they call it. And my son got a piece of it in his ear, and he came home from school and he said to me, "I think I have a piece of gravel in my ear." And I said, "Well, that's ridiculous." And he, he said, "Well, I think I have a piece of gravel in my ear." And that was the end of it. He didn't say anything else. Couple of days later, he came up to me and he said, "Mom, I really think I have a rock in my ear." And I looked at him, and I said, "That's stupid." He said, "No, I think I have a rock in my ear." I said, "That's silly, you know, probably have wax in your ear." I looked. I didn't see anything. Oh, toward the end of the week, he came in and he said, "Mom, really. I have a rock in my ear and I need to get it out 'cause I can't hear out of that ear, and it's really starting to bother me. I have a rock in my ear." I said, "Well it must be hard ear wax. Let's -- I- I'll call the doctor tomorrow, and we'll see if we can get them to syringe your ear with some warm water and see if they can get the ear wax to come out." I said, "If you, if you've got that much in there, I don't wanna be the one that plays with it." My dad had ear wax. I figured he probably does have it. I figured I better not. And I did look, and I did see something that looked kind of like an orange blob of ear wax in there, and I thought, "Okay, fine." So we go to the pediatrician, and the nurse comes in, and she's got the syringe and this stuff, and she says, "I'm gonna" -- She tells him what she's gonna do and everything else. And she swishes the water, squeezes the syringe in, the water goes into his ear and into the little plate thing that she has that she's holding under his ear for the water to come…

I am not roasting today, but the topic this week is rrroasting! And that just makes me think of my mom's roast with potatoes and carrots that she makes. Oh, it's so good, and I hate -- even though I hate cooked carrots, like, I'll still eat that roast 'cause the potatoes and the meat are, are just so good. I can't be the only one that's like that. I mean, I'm definitely somebody -- I'm a picky eater, but, like, cooked carrots do not taste the same as, like, raw carrots, and I love raw carrots. I'll eat those up, plain and simple: throw 'em on my salad, have 'em just as a snack with some, you know, Italian dressing or some hummus, heck yeah! But roasted carrots, they don't taste the same and I'm just not a fan of that texture. I think that's why I'm a picky eater. It's because of, like, texture. 'Cause there is just some stuff that I'm like, "Ooh, no, that's -- it's too, too mushy." Like, I'm not a big fan of applesauce anymore. I used to like it as a kid, but now that I have it, I'm like, "Hmm, you know, this is too close to like, vomit in my mouth. I can't do it." I -- like, cooked carrots are kinda like that mushy consistency where I'm like, "I can't do this."

The second time that I remember, I was -- we took a trip up to the Upper Peninsula to visit my mom's family and I had packed, you know, a certain number of outfits for the weekend that we were gonna be there. It was during the summer, but for some reason I think I thought that it was supposed to be a little bit chilly, or maybe I remember being on Mackinac Island before and sometimes it's cooler there than it is on, you know, the mainland. So I had -- the only outfit -- that was our last day. We were, we were in the UP and we were coming back down south, gonna stop, spend the day on Mackinac Island and then come back to Traverse City. This is -- I was probably in hi- -- I'm thinking I was in high school this time. The only outfit I had left was a black turtleneck sweater. Like, that's what I had to wear on the top. That was the only thing I hadn't worn yet of the clothes that I had brought with me. Now, if I was intelligent I would have just worn something else, you know, one of the other pieces of clothing that I had even if I had already worn it because it was hot that day, and being on the island did not make that much of a difference in the way that the temperature felt. It was so warm that day, and I kept, like, rolling up the sleeves and I was just sweating so much and so, so hot and my mom and sister who I was with were looking at me like I was absolutely insane because I pretty much was like, I don't know, I don't know what I was thinking. It was so, so, so hot and I don't know why I didn't even -- like, why couldn't I just buy a t-shirt there? I probably didn't want to spend the money. Or just so many ways that I could've made that situation just a little bit more comfortable, a little bit better, but I didn't end up doing any of them and just kind of suffered through basically.

So, you know, we get, we get the, uh, the warning and we're -- we've just gotten to [the mall] at that point and I had just ordered something so I, so I sent my daughter to p- -- inside to pick it up. And then she comes out -- thankfully they, they got our order done really quick, so we just drove off home. So we -- I, I dropped her off at her house 'cause they, they live in a separate house. And -- she and her dad live in a separate house. And I didn’t -- I went to the neighborhood grocery store because we, we hadn't gotten milk. So I go in and I get the milk. And [I’m] chatting with the grocery lady -- the store manager, she -- and then I walk toward the door. She says, "You're going out in that?" And I said, "Yes, we have a tornado warning." She says, "I know, I heard there’s si- I heard the sirens." It was pouring rain. I got drenched just going from the door of the grocery store to my car and it’s side -- it’s curbside parking. All I, I was only out for the, the width of the curb and the width of my car. And I got drenched.

Monday was eclipse day, and my boyfriend and I had the day off. And we went to a park in Hudson, Michigan, um, which is like sort of near Adrian to watch it. It was one of, like, the recommended spots on the Michigan DNR website. So we had a lotta fun doing that. The only not fun thing was on the way back, we stopped at this, like, supermarket town center type place to use the bathroom, and when I came out of the bathroom, there was a woman unconscious on the floor by the sink. So I just, like, ran out and I started screaming, "Help! Help!" And some people, like, came in and were, like, looking for breathing sounds. And I called 911 and someone came out and I stayed until, like, they got there. I didn't, um -- I wasn't sure if I, like, had to stay and talk to the cops, but I didn't end up staying since, like, I didn't know her or anything. Um, so -- and I had like looked online later to see if I could like see anything, ‘cause I was like curious as to whether she like lived obviously, but I haven't found anything, and she was pretty young looking so I feel like if she had passed there would be, like, online posts about it but there weren't, so I'm thinking she probably made it.

I'd like to talk about the eclipse this past week. I watched the spectacle in my backyard with my eclipse glasses that I saved from 2017. And it was spectacular. It, it was really amazing to watch that. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the path of totality, but it was still amazing to watch this beautiful force of nature, to -- that we could, we could see this. However, I was by myself, and I was sad, and I was sad because my husband wasn't here to experience this with me. He passed away in 2016, and he was, he was interested in everything. He was a real science geek. As a matter of fact, he took a weather class in college, partly because he was a sailor and weather was interesting to him. But as I continued to watch the eclipse and thinking about him, I became really pissed. Really pissed off that he wasn't here to experience this with me. I know that if he had been here, we would have driven somewhere in the path of totality to be able to see this. So I- -- I had very mixed feelings watching this, this eclipse. I was amazed at how beautiful it was and how God's creation could unfold so beautifully. I was sad that my husband wasn't here and I was pissed that death had taken away our future.

So I got to see the solar eclipse today. It was pretty awesome. I came down to see family in Ohio, in the Cleveland area, which just by sheer luck is in the path of totality and that was, that was really cool. I hadn't experienced that before. When I was -- I was thinking back to the eclipse in 2017. I think it was '17. And I remember just looking through the glasses and seeing the moon block part of the sun. But, but yeah, I guess I forgot or just didn't think about it that we didn't have totality at that time, I'm pretty sure. 'Cause I don't remember seeing the sun, like, that with the corona and everything. And it getting, like, significantly darker. It was just really cool. It was really fun. Um, so yeah, I was, I was hanging out with my, my mom and stepdad. There was a, a sort of solar fest here. So we went to that and that was fun. There was, like, food trucks and, like, science activities for kids that my mom organized 'cause my mom teaches science to kids. But uh, but yeah. It was a really good time.